Burkina Faso’s military rulers said Tuesday that they had dissolved a journalists’ association after it reported that two of its leaders who criticized the junta were taken away by police, AFP reports.
Interior Minister Emile Zerbo accused the Burkina Journalists’ Association (AJB) of breaching a 2015 administrative regulation.
“In the eyes of the law, there is no (such) association,” Zerbo said in a statement. “It is considered dissolved and non-existent as of today.”
Burkina has seen numerous abductions of people viewed as critical of the junta under its chief Ibrahim Traore since he took over in a coup in 2022.
The association’s president Guezouma Sanogo criticised “attacks on the freedom of expression and the press” in an address to the AJB’s congress on Friday.
He also branded the country’s national television channel and news agency “tools of propaganda”.
The AJB later said Sanogo and his deputy president Boukari Ouoba were detained Monday and taken to an unknown destination.
A third journalist, Luc Pagbelguem, was also taken in for questioning, said the private channel that he worked for, BF1.
“Anyone who in any way… seeks to support a disbanded organisation, is at risk of sanctions,” Zerbo said.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) demanded the authorities “release them without delay”, in a statement sent to AFP on Monday.
The AJB says seven colleagues were abducted last year, some of them still missing.
Last week, political group SENS said five of its members including a journalist had been abducted after it denounced civilian massacres blamed on the army and allied militias.
Burkinabe authorities have denied the accusations of mass killings.
In the past decade, Burkina Faso has been caught in a spiral of violence blamed on jihadists that has spilt over from neighbouring Mali and Niger and since spread beyond the three countries’ borders.
